Togo, revisited.

 

Because Ghana is getting so routine, we decided we needed a little French influence again! Alanna and I went back to Togo to try to get our visas extended so we could spend a week there over exams or something.  We took off at about 9:30, turned around at 9:40 because i had stupidly  forgotten my passport (I really need to learn how to pack earlier than an hour before I leave…) and we were finally on our tro tro to Lome at about 11.

Our first order of business was trying to renew our Togo visas. We took the motor taxis, zemi-johns, through Lome and discovered actually how big the city is! I guess the three hours we spent there a few weeks ago didn’t really cut it. Go figure. The men at the passport office had no idea what we were talking about when we wanted extensions. We tried to tell them that a handful of other girls had gotten theirs extended but they wouldn’t hear it, probably because so many people were in line. So our entire reason for going to Togo was a fail.

There was a small Lebanese place on our way back, and starved of vegetables for three months, we decided an early dinner was necessary. The BEST Fatoush, ever. We ended up gong back for nearly every meal! it was nearly 8 by this time, so we headed back to our hotel. Luckily for us, Fridays are jazz night! There was a live band who played most of the night. Alanna and I were half dead from travelling, so we went to bead early and fell asleep to jazzed up bob Marley.

Saturday was market day! We hit up the Grand Market looking for touristy things and had plenty of help finding them. A lady who only spoke French followed us for about an hour before we could communicate enough to figure out what she was saying. In the end, she either wanted to take us to church, or to lunch. As soon as we could mime the fact that we had already eaten, she left only to be replaced with another man. He was Ghanaian, spoke with us in Twi and helped us find the right places in the market to get Batiks and Togo things. Of course all he really wanted was us to visit his shop and buy his EXTREMELY (and when I say extremely I mean, whoa. WAY overpriced) expensive little wooden carvings. Yeah right. So we jumped on zemi-johns and headed to the Voodoo market.

This market was sad. It was in a small parking lot in the middle of nowhere, stuffed with tables full of the dried heads of any animal you can think of. There were horns, teeth, claws, dried mice, chameleons, birds; heads with hair or skulls of cats, dogs, antelope, goats; hides of leopards, antelope, goats; caged rats, a vulture on a post, a live chameleon in a bag. it was a potpourri of stuff I would have rather not seen, but was too curious not to peek.

After this lovely market, we went back to the border and slipped through with a 60 day Ghanaian extension, enough to get us home, without having to bribe the gatekeepers.